ARMAMENTS

BERLIN | GENEVA (IDN) – A new document that outlines U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and force posture for the next five to ten years proclaims that the Trump Administration does not intend to ratify a global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. Nor does it rule out resuming such tests.

The document, titled 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), proclaims that "the United States does not support the ratification of the CTBT." But the U.S. will continue to support the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

The writer is a former Sri Lanka Ambassador and UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs. He was also President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs for ten years until August 2017. Click here for his previous stimulating contributions for IDN. – The Editor.

KANDY (IDN) – Donald Trump has always had the capacity to surprise us. Amidst the actions to fulfil his Presidential Campaign promise to "Make America Great Again" by slapping tariffs on friendly allies and having declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, he has now signalled a dramatic volte-face on talks with Kim Jong-un of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) whom he had frequently taunted as the "little rocket man".

The author is Executive Secretary of CTBTO, Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The following is a slightly abridged and modified text of his address on 26 February to the High-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, multilateral disarmament negotiating forum where the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva was negotiated in the 1990s. (Read the original text here.) Dr. Zerbo stressed that "we must take great care to preserve the integrity of the institutions and instruments we have and to build trust in them and around them. This means maintain and securing the NPT and its entire chain of responsibilities – of which the CTBT entry into force is an integral part". – The Editor

BERLIN (IDN) – The United Nations and the European Union as well as independent arms control experts have welcomed the results of latest talks between South and North Korea, and called for seizing the opportunities opening up for peace in the region and for reducing international tensions.

The significance of emerging prospects is underlined by the fact that though the Korean War ended in 1953, in the absence of a peace treaty the two Koreas are technically still at war. As The New York Times notes, in the United States where coverage of the armed conflict was censored and its memory decades later is often overshadowed by World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War has been called "the Forgotten War".

This report was carried by the South Korean news agency on March 6 (local time: 23.38) and is being reproduced to give a glimpse into how the current development on the Korean peninsula is viewed in the Republic of Korea. – The Editor

SEOUL (IDN-INPS) – South Korean political parties on March 6 demonstrated mixed reactions to the results of the high-stakes visit to North Korea by President Moon Jae-in's special envoys, which included an agreement to hold a cross-border summit next month.

Shortly after returning from his two-day visit to Pyongyang, Chung Eui-yong, Moon's chief security advisor and head of the South's 10-member delegation, announced a set of agreements with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

BANGALORE (IDN) – "Though India is a reluctant nuclear power, nuclear deterrence will continue to play a crucial role in India's national security strategy over the next few decades," says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal, Distinguished Fellow at India's Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

In his recent book 'Sharpening the Arsenal: India's Evolving Nuclear Deterrence Policy', he explains the reason: "Only when India's adversaries are convinced that India has both the necessary political and military will and the hardware to respond to a nuclear strike with punitive retaliation that will inflict unacceptable loss of human life and unprecedented material damage, will they be deterred."

The Treaty, which opened for signature on September 20, 2017, will remain open indefinitely. It will enter into force 90 days after 50 nations have ratified or acceded to it. Until now, five states have ratified the Treaty: Guyana, Holy See and Thailand on September 20, 2017 immediately after signing. They were followed by Mexico on January 16 and Cuba on January 30.

Since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted in July 2017, "these will be the first venues for debate and deliberation that will include both the nuclear-weapon and nuclear-dependent states," says eminent Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, founder and President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) with 12 million members in 192 countries and regions.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – In December 2016, President Donald Trump tweeted that the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” and later told MSNBC that he would “outmatch” and “outlast” other potential competitors in a nuclear arms race. The comments mostly prompted condemnation in the United States and around the world and raised concerns about the direction the president would take U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

Jorge Alberto López Lechuga is Research and Communication Officer of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL). The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of OPANAL and its Member States. – The Editor

MEXICO (IDN) – On February 2, the Government of the U.S. published the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which includes the strategy to increase the role of nuclear weapons in national security. The NPR considers the need to double the military budget from 3% to 6.4% in order to modernize the U.S. arsenal. This would mean an investment of 1 trillion USD over the next 30 years. It also states that expanding "flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression", a strategy that will raise "the nuclear threshold".